


"Her Golden Fire"

by fannishliss



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alien Gender/Sexuality, Bad Wolf Rose Tyler, F/M, Matchmaker TARDIS, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-29
Updated: 2011-07-29
Packaged: 2017-11-26 15:40:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/651893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannishliss/pseuds/fannishliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>  The Tardis saves Rose from the power of the Vortex.  What happens next?</p>
            </blockquote>





	"Her Golden Fire"

**title: "Her Golden Fire"**  
author: [](http://fannishliss.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://fannishliss.livejournal.com/)**fannishliss**    
pairing: Nine/Rose  
rating; nc17  
warning: alien anatomy!  
spoilers: Coda and AU to Parting of the Ways.  
length: 5177 words  
disclaimer: the BBC owns these marvellous characters and the lines of script I've quoted; Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper brought them gloriously to life.  I appreciate the inspiration and am making no profit off this story.

summary:  The Tardis saves Rose from the power of the Vortex.  What happens next?

  
~*?*~

 

The Doctor gripped the detonator of the death machine he'd cobbled together — but he couldn't do it.  He couldn't drench his hands in the blood of so many innocents, the genocide of an entire race. Not again. 

He prepared himself to meet his fate: annihilation by the Daleks.  Perhaps this had been waiting for him all along.  He closed his eyes, making an attempt at peace for himself.

Then a wonderful, beloved sound filled his ears,  one he'd resigned himself never to hear again, and he spun around. The ancient entity, old even when first he’d met her, sang her joyful greeting into his mind.  But it sounded different, strange and new.  He stared at his Tardis as she opened her doors, and there, surrounded by golden light— the epitome of all the Time Lords had been, all the mysteries of the universe they’d harnessed and exploited— there stood a young human girl, singing in his brain the time song of a goddess.

Rose had breached the Tardis’s core and returned to him.

He fell to the ground in shock. She’d come back to save him. She’d put herself in danger for the likes of him?   "What have you done?"

Distance and disorientation flattened her answer. "I looked into the Tardis and the Tardis looked into me."  Her simple words dizzied him, his time sensitive brain struggling to cope with the permutations of always, now, and to be Rose now embodied.  

"You looked into the Time Vortex, Rose—no one's meant to see that,"  he cried, overwhelmed.

The Daleks screeched unheeded around him.  Helpless and terrified, he watched as a beam of death shot toward the precious girl in front of him.  Casually, Rose lifted her hand and deflected the beam as easily as a lady might dismiss  unwanted servants.

He stared, amazed. Not even he could do that, not without burning through a life's worth of regenerative energy.

"I am the Bad Wolf.  I create myself."  Tears stained her face, but her voice remained eerily calm, ringing through his mind, familiar and strange. Even as he distractedly catalogued the long list of “Bad Wolf” iterations threading through his life, the monumental truth of what she said stood forth in his time senses: she'd always been becoming this, the Time Goddess standing before him. 

Her entire life crystallized around this moment. Her words held fractals of meaning, spiraling outward into ripples of effect the likes of which the Doctor had never seen. Through some twist of fate, Rose had become a nexus of the Vortex— something even the Time Lords had never achieved.  Her bond with the Tardis was apparently just as robust as his own. He hadn’t noticed; he’d merely assumed that Rose would unconsciously resist the Tardis’s overtures as most humans did;  he’d smiled to see the affection Rose displayed toward his Tardis, but he hadn’t been privy to their developing bond.  Just like his wily ship to keep such a thing a secret from him -- the old girl had conspired with the human, even now shielding her from the deadly energy, helping her tolerate the infinity of spreading possibilities swirling through her mind.

But no matter how powerful an ally she had in his Tardis, she was still only human.  Even the most gifted Time Lords had been destroyed by energy this wild.  A mere girl could never survive it.  

"Rose, you've got to stop — you've got to stop this now!" he pleaded. "You've got the entire Vortex running through your head — you're gonna burn!"

Her eyes lowered, considering, and focused intently on his own.  "I want you safe," she said, and his hearts gave such a painful lurch he didn't know how they could keep on beating.  "My Doctor — protected from the false god."

With all the authority of the goddess she’d become, she dismissed the monstrous Dalek ranting on the screen. "You are tiny.  I can see the whole of time and space, every single atom of your existence, and I divide them."  With a gesture, she banished the Daleks from existence, and everywhere they rippled into nothingness.

"Everything must come to dust — all things,"  she wept, compassion shaking her voice even as she pronounced judgement on the hateful, twisted creatures.  "Everything dies.  The Time War ends."

The Doctor felt strangled.  Did Rose know how she had echoed his own words?  Under the perversions of Rassilon, the Time Lords had aspired to leave the universe of matter behind, becoming a shameful mirror of the Daleks -- and he’d been the one forced to stop them.

Rose's resolve before the Daleks soothed a wound in him he never thought would find salve.  In her compassion and innocence, she brought entropy to the Daleks, dousing their hatred in the annihilation they craved.  Genocide looked more like mercy at the hand of this goddess, and the Doctor could almost believe that his own decision, to save the universe at the cost of casting his own people outside time, might have been similarly righteous. 

He lay at her feet, simply staring up at her in wonder.  The Tardis, glowing like a sun, continued to feed her power into the miraculous girl. 

The Daleks had dispersed into nothing, but Rose was still peering, shaking, into eternity. The Vortex, a maelstrom of every possibility, was beginning to take her down.

"Rose," he said, struggling up, "you've done it — now stop!  Just let go!"

When she answered, her voice for the first time lost its certainty, tinged with pain.  "How can I let go of this?  I bring life!"

He felt a wave of power course through him as she commanded the regenerative energies of Time to repair any trace of cellular damage throughout his body.  Cleansed of the explosive violence of Time Lord regeneration, the bliss of complete cellular restoration pervaded his being, negating the toxins of battle, a gentle caress from the goddess who wanted him safe.  He felt strangely relaxed, which paradoxically, terrified him the more.

"But this is wrong!" he said, panicking,    "You can't control life and death!"

"But I can!" she said simply, and who was he to deny, when he could feel the lazy luxury of her power? Truth rang like the cloister bell through her every word.  "The sun and the moon, the day and night — but why do they hurt?"

The words echoed through his brain and he remembered, through the bleary haze of centuries, the prophecy the Pythian sister had given him, long ago, in his youth.  This girl, this human girl, was the reason he'd tied his own fate to that of the Earth, becoming its champion.  That prophecy had stunned him and given him hope, a reason to live that he'd never dared look for, and he’d swaddled it in the dust of ages, afraid to lift the veil away from it, afraid it wouldn't measure up. 

But the prophecy was a pale shadow of the golden glory standing above him, looking down at him with all-powerful, sacrificial and selfless love, all for him if he dared claim it.

"The power's gonna kill you, and It's my fault!" he cried, turning aside from her in guilt and shame.  So much had been asked of him, and he'd willingly given it every time — but why must the ones he loved be destroyed alongside him?

"I can see everything — all that is, all that was,"  she said, and he looked up again, startled.  There was perfect knowledge in her words, understanding and acceptance of all he'd done.  She still loved him, despite it all.

"All that ever could be."  The love and hope in her voice was purely human now, as she looked at him with tears standing in her eyes.

Humbled, he stood; he was a better man, at least, than to lie there cowering while she faced so many wracking and hopeful possibilities with such courage.   "But that's what I see.  All the time.  Doesn't it drive you mad?"

"My head," she cried, "it's killing me!"

The golden light of the Vortex veiling the soft brown of her eyes, a frown of pain creased her forehead and he leaned forward, intending to breathe in the destructive power running roughshod over her and return it safely to the Tardis.

But before his lips could touch hers, the Tardis reached out and pulled the rogue energy back into herself. 

The Doctor watched in wonder as the alien energy drained away from the girl, until his time senses registered little of the strange reverberations that had surrounded her.  They were still there, though at a much lower level, and he realized they’d been there all along, calling out to him subliminally since what seemed like so long ago in the Henrik’s basement, the very first time they’d linked hands and run in one thrilling accord.

As the last of the Vortex flowed back into the console chamber,  Rose fainted, falling into the Doctor's arms. He watched in awe as his ship went dark and shut her doors, locking away the dangerous energy of the Vortex deep inside her heart.

He cradled Rose tightly in his arms, in awe at the miracle she’d accomplished.  How could a human being look into the heart of a Tardis -- even if they’d bonded?  Had she really, somehow, created herself able to do this?  Paradoxical, inconceivable.  Unable to resist, he kissed her hair, allowing himself just for a moment to revel in the fact that she was alive, and so was he. 

He heard the pounding of boots down a corridor.

“Doctor!”  It was Jack, but he jangled the Doctor’s time sense badly. He bore a distinct resonance of the Vortex; Rose must have done something to him.  Though he was glad to see his friend alive, the man set his teeth on edge now.

He strode into the Tardis, ignoring Jack’s questions as the doors swung open.  He passed  through the console room door and on into the corridor leading directly to Rose’s room.  Jack, wisely, didn’t follow.

He savored her weight in his arms as he strode along.  She wasn’t a delicate girl; she was strong and well-muscled.  He had the distinct urge to lay her down on her bed and inspect every part of her deliberately with both hands, just to reassure himself that she was all there.

Instead, he carefully laid her down and took off her trainers.   The Tardis kept her room a pleasant temperature, but just cool enough for the human girl to want covers. He lifted a light blanket -- one Rose had brought from home; her scent wafted in the air as he stirred it -- and started to tuck it in around her. 

“Doctor,” she murmured, but she was still asleep. 

His heart beat harder, his eyes feasting on her beloved face.  She’d done the impossible, all for him.  Was he such a coward? Would he hide from the gift that had called to him all across the ages, screaming BAD WOLF across the universe, ringing so loudly through time that even the ancient Pythians had heard?

As he stared, her eyes flickered open. 

“Doctor!”  she murmured, smiling.

“Rose,” he smiled, joy surging inside him. “How do you feel?”

“I feel okay,” she said.  “Actually, I feel really good.” 

“What do you remember?”  he asked, hearts pounding.  Would she have forgotten it all?  Would the Tardis have taken her memories to protect her mind from the paradoxes she had seen?

“I think I remember... destroying all the Daleks?”  she said, frowning.

“That’s right, you did,” he said, gently.

“But how?”  she asked. She raised her hand warily, looking at it like it wasn’t part of her.  That beloved hand, that he’d held so many times!  He took it now in his own, stroking it with his thumb, taking comfort from the simple connection.

“Don’t you remember the Vortex?”  he asked.

“I looked into the Tardis... she helped me,” Rose said.  “I think... she took back the fire, took away the things I couldn't handle.” 

“She’s a special one, my Tardis,” the Doctor laughed.  It was either laughter or tears for him now.

Rose’s eyes grew hard, and her grip on his hand tightened.  “How could you do that to me, send me away like that! What if I hadn’t figured it out?  What if she hadn’t helped me?”

He bowed his head under the weight of her anger, but accepted it.  “I promised your mum I’d keep you safe.  I’ll always put your safety first.” 

“No!” she denied. “You can’t do that!  I don’t want you do ever do that again!”

He just looked down at her coolly.  He was nothing if not stubborn.

“Doctor, please! You can’t know, you can’t understand, what it was like... there at home, knocking about, wondering what was happening to you, if you were dying, if the Daleks had you....”  Tears filled her eyes.

“But Rose,” he said.  “That’s who I am.  That’s what I do, what I’ve always done.”

“I know that! and I love you for it...”  Rose trailed off, her eyes opening in shock at what she’d said.

She stared up at him, so beautiful and brave, her hair a tangled mess all over the pillow, while he sat perched on the edge of her bed, held from running by the fierce grip she had on his hand. Her other hand joined it.

“I do, you know,” she said, the tears spilling.  “I love you so much.  I don’t even know if you, if your people, can feel this way, but I don’t care! Don’t you dare ever send me away like that again!”  By the end of her little speech, she was red-faced, blotchy, furious and sobbing, and he’d never seen anything so beautiful. His hearts ached to see her like this, but he couldn’t ignore the greedy, selfish part of him that stood cheering in a corner of his mind, wildly celebrating. 

“I’m not sure,” he said softly.  He stared down at her, able to see nothing else; he felt lightheaded, like he couldn’t breathe.  He was sure his hands must be like ice to her, and his hearts were pounding out triple-time.

She just stared up him, chewing her lip, but she wouldn’t let go of his hand, so the tears trickled freely down her face.

“I’m not sure I feel the way you feel,” he said. “I’m so old, Rose; and sometimes I die and come back new and then I wonder who I am...  and I’ve done terrible things...”

“What things?” Rose asked in a whisper. “Like destroying all the Daleks?”

“Don’t think that, Rose.  They had their chance to back down.”  He swallowed, and tried to get it out.  “The Daleks started a terrible war, and my people were getting more and more vicious, and I had to...”  He broke off.  Even now, after a year with her, he couldn’t bear to say what he’d done out loud. 

Rose gripped his hand. “You did the right thing,” she said.

“How do you know?” he asked, hopelessly.

“I know you,” she said.  “You’re the Doctor.” 

He felt his time sense react when she said his name.  It always had done, he realized, but he hadn’t noticed, the effect was so slight... like satin gliding across skin, a cat purring in the corner of the room, a sigh of contentment on a summer afternoon.

“And you’re Rose,” he said, just to feel her name carried on his breath, the saucy growl of the r, the roundness of it on his lips and tongue, and the beautiful image it made in his mind, the sound of it in Gallifreyan, the design at the heart of the birth of the universe.

She smiled through her tears.  “I thought I’d never hear you say my name again.  I thought I’d lost you forever,” she said.

“You came back,”  he said.  “Stupid,” he said, off-hand.

Her eyes lit up.  “You’re stupid!” she answered, and bit her tongue at him. 

He felt himself shaking with laughter, his eyes widening comically, as he dared her to up the ante.

“You didn’t answer me properly,” she said, her eyes darting away, her hands still hot around his. 

“It’s not that easy,” he said.

“Yes, it is!” she said, her face twisting in disbelief.  “Either you do or you don’t!”

Slightly irritated, he said, “I’m a Time Lord, Rose.  I can’t say I can’t live without you.”

She pursed her lips and made no answer, waiting.  She was wise, his Rose.

He could let it drop.  He could let her feel like she was pushing.  He could disappoint her, and eventually, the gleam in her eyes when she looked up at him would fade, the smiles she gave to the pretty boys who chased her would be no different from the ones she gave him, and at last she’d move on, going back into the day to day life of the timebound, while he roamed the universe freely, seeking out all its marvels and saving worlds as a matter of course.

It sounded awful.

“I don’t want to,” he said, bravely.

She blinked.  Her chin dropped slightly.  She looked away.  “Oh.  Well.  That’s fine, then.  We’ll just ... be getting on, then.” 

Confused, he retraced the conversation.  He tried again.  “I could live without you, Rose, but I really don’t want to.”

Her eyes flashed back to him, brightening. That was much nicer.  It gave him the courage to go on.

“Time Lord,” he said, dismissively.  “Arrogant, vain.  Flighty.  Always haring off to save some planet, putting you in danger.  But you... you make me better.  I know that,” he said, honestly.  “I want that.  I don’t know what love is.  I’m not sure any Time Lord has ever really loved. A needy, selfish, demanding lot.  But you make me want to find out.”

“Fair enough,” she said, but her broad smile and sigh of relief belied her simple words. “But tell me, what’s the Time Lord attitude towards snogging?”

His breath grew tight again.  This brilliant, cheeky little human -- she was going to be the death of him.  He wouldn’t mind, not if he came back and she was still there.

“Hated it.  Despised it. Laws against it, some eras.  Banned outright.  Me though, I’m a rebel, and well-versed in low Earth customs.”

“Well-versed, are you? Like, how well you can dance?” she teased. 

“Mmhmm, just like.”  He leaned in slowly, savoring every moment of the approach. Rose’s eyes were soft and dark, pupils hugely dilated.  Her breathing was shallow, her heart beat fast.  She darted out her pink little tongue and wet her lips. How he longed to taste them for the very first time. 

She let go of his hand, carefully, sliding one hand up his shoulder.  He shrugged, impatient, and her eyes flashed dangerously.

“Let me get rid of this jacket!” he said, realizing that he really was asking her permission.  She allowed it, and he threw it to the floor, another piece of his armor shed.

Now when her hand touched his shoulder, and the other slid around his side, he could feel her properly through the thin wool of his jumper -- the heat of her hands against his much cooler body; the electrical impulses of nerves firing, obeying her whims as she pulled him down; and even, faintly, her emotions -- tenderness, excitement, lust.  He could smell her arousal warming, and he set that aside.  This was a first kiss, that’s all he would allow it to be.

She pulled him down, and eagerly, he went.  He’d been kissed before, of course, but only in the heat of the moment-- memories of shock and alarm as lusty hands grabbed for him, greedy thoughts intruding on his own.  His wife, he hazily remembered, from the old old days of his first incarnation, he’d approached with respect and propriety; nothing like snogging.

The tenderness of Rose’s lips pressed against his took his breath away.  He could hear her thoughts pounding in the front of her mind, thoughts of how much she wanted him, how long she’d waited, her disbelief this moment had finally come, and over it all, a tremendous sense of accomplishment, that yes, they were finally kissing!

She pulled him even closer, and he let himself be pulled.  He was lying across her now, his jumper-clad chest pressed against her; the low neck of her tee shirt bared her throat to him, and he could feel the pounding of her heart against the fast quadruple rhythm of his own. She kissed so intently, stroking him sweetly with her hands.  He felt intoxicated, drinking in her exhalations, tasting her joy, hearing her blissful thoughts ring out so flatteringly: how she reveled in his weight pressing her down, the feel of his musculature under her hands, the receptivity of his cool yet passionate kisses, and how much the little noises he was making turned her on.

He pulled away, blushing.  Her eyes fluttered open.

“Am I making little noises?”  he asked, rather more highly pitched than he’d expected.

“Yeah, you are,” she purred through a satisfied smile.

“That doesn’t sound like me,” he said, nonchalant.

“Yeah, it does,” she said.  “It sounds brilliant.”  She ran a light finger up the side of his neck, but he caught it before she reached his temple, and kissed it gently. 

“If you touch me on the face, especially the temples, it’s very intimate,” he said, “asking to be let into my private thoughts.”

“Do you,” Rose asked, playfulness lightening her deep sincerity, “want to be that intimate?”

A great flood of feeling rose up inside him: loneliness, fear, hope, gratitude, the awe he felt at the uniqueness of this amazing woman. 

“Yeah,” he answered, immolating his fears in a great blaze of longing.  “With you, Rose Tyler, I most definitely do.”

“What are we waiting for then?” she asked.

“I’ve no idea,” he answered. 

She lifted his hand to the zipper of her hoodie, encouraging him as he stripped her clothes away. 

As though in a beautiful dream he found himself lying mostly naked atop her, skin to skin, his ear pressed to her chest as he listened to the thud of her heart beating.  His hands roamed lightly over her body, touching her here and there and testing for the headiest reactions.

"This, this is so amazing," Rose murmured.  "I can feel you touching me, before you even touch me." 

"Gallifreyan," he said, "this is what we were like before we became Time Lords.  Touch telepaths.  The more we touch..."

"... the more I feel. Oh, Doctor!  It feels so good!"  She was thinking about lush tropical gardens, that hot, steamy paradise they'd visited a while back where the people had tamed the entire planet to produce nothing but fruit and flowers.  She was imagining him as a cool, shaded pool, dappled with sunlight.  She was thinking of how delightful it would be to slip into those chilled, refreshing waters. 

"Rose, the images in your mind, I can see them," he whispered.  "So lush, so beautiful."

"Can't I see into your mind as well, Doctor?  Or must I just feel?"  She arched against him, gasping at the feedback as the glorious warmth and softness of her body fed into his senses and back into hers.

"Go ahead, Rose," the Doctor said, and her hand floated slowly to his temple, deepening the connection their bodies had already begun. Tenderly, delicately, she breached the defenses of his mind. The joy and love in her thoughts overwhelmed him.   What would she think of his passion, his need, his painful desire to possess her, all for himself?  He needed so badly to show her how much she meant to him, how much he adored her.  
   
He shifted, tasting one of her breasts while he lightly stroked the other.  She tasted of so much life, so young and vibrant. He drank in her moans, savoring her responses as he chased down all that felt best to her, feeding it back through his own body into her until she was caught in a wash of pleasure.

The Doctor felt Rose breathing deeply, trying to relax into his slow assault on her senses. 

"You smell like honey," she murmured, stroking his back.  Her fingers were so hot, tracing lines of fire on his skin.

"Do you like honey?"  he asked, playfully.  She was imagining huge tropical flowers again, orange and crimson. 

"It's my favorite," she said. She pulled him up a little, kissing his neck, breathing deeply behind his ear and licking at his pulse points. 

He returned the favor, filling his lungs with the clean and slightly musky scent of aroused human.  He kissed her again, breathing in the exhalations of her lungs, tasting her joy, her arousal, her need for him, and felt with relief the twinge of his arousal beginning to emerge.   At last, his body was ready to join with hers.

"Rose, I'm a little different down there," he said, feeling that he should at least warn her.

"I, um, didn't," she blushed, not wanting to embarrass him. She was wondering why she hadn't felt his erection.

"My organs are internal," he said simply.  "Do you want to see?" 

"Yeah," she said, breathless, a lusty stream of pornographic images parading through her mind. 

"Be kind," he said, but he wasn't really afraid.  She might be shocked at first, but he knew his body was ready for her; it couldn't possibly fail him, not when she was so lovely and he wanted her so badly. 

She helped him out of his boxers, and he heard her intake of breath. Her eyes fluttered up to his, a bit confused to see just a small opening, his organ only beginning to emerge.

She knelt up to get closer, curious after her initial surprise.  Another twinge sent shivers up his spine, as his organ, reacting to her attention, hardened and emerged a little further.

Her eyes flew to his again. "It gets bigger?"

"A lot bigger,"  he said, modestly.

"Oh," she breathed, and leaned down toward it.  "May I?" she said, her nervousness gone so quickly.

The image in her mind astonished him, and arousal flooded his system.  "Gently," he said, bracing himself to lie back and keep still.

She touched him lightly between the legs — no scrotum, no testicles.  "Inside?" she said. 

He nodded.

"Ah," she nodded back.  She traced the outline of his opening with a gentle finger, sending delicious, ticklish sparks raging through him.  "It's a little like mine... only a little... it's wet..." she said contemplatively, bringing her finger to her mouth.  He thought his hearts would burst as she sucked the finger in, tasting his moisture.  "Mmmm, honey again, a little citrus?"

His arousal thickened again, jumping forward as she gazed.  "Delicious," she purred, lowering her head to lick at him. 

With a surge that was almost painful, his organ entirely emerged, yearning toward the heaven in Rose's mouth. "Rose, Rose, Rose," he chanted, almost incapable of thought as she gently suckled him, caressing him so softly, her tongue and her beautiful lips pure bliss around him. 

"Not, not like this," he finally choked, gripping the bed sheets fiercely.    She pulled away slowly, smiling, licking her lips.

"Okay," she said, and kissed him.  Wildly he arched up into her, delving into her mouth, her flavors, already so beloved, mingling with his own, driving him to distraction. 

She lay back and he was upon her, his whole body lighting up in ecstasy at the renewed contact. 

"Please, Rose, let me inside you," he begged. 

Wordlessly she reached down and opened herself, and with one mighty thrust, he was in.  He stilled, panting, adjusting, connecting. 

"Doctor," she moaned, and he was awed at the images in her mind, her impression of bravery and strength. He saw himself as she saw him, through a golden haze, the picture of heady masculinity.  He saw the depth of her desire for him, her intense satisfaction that he was finally inside her, her longing to stay with him forever, and he felt a rush of pride.  He could be all that, if she wanted it. He would give her whatever she wanted. He concentrated, stirring within her.

"Oh, oh, what is that?  it's... oh!" Rose shouted as he sent bliss through their connection, pulsing along her nerves.   She was so, so beautiful as he danced inside her body, thrilling every nerve in ways she never could have imagined. His passion for her flowed through and around them, building and doubling till neither could think of anything else but the great sublime thing blossoming between them.

At last, it grew too intense, even for him.  Insistent, desperate, he pressed his forehead to hers. Her love and joy exploded around him, surrounding him with the grace and beauty that was Rose, pulling him under.

"Rose, oh Rose!" he cried out, and emptied himself inside her, his ecstatic shout finally joining her own. 

"Doctor," she said, as they caught their breath, "that was... that... there aren't even words."

He smiled at her, agreeing. 

"How long would you have waited?" she asked.

He shrugged. Maybe, too long.  Maybe, forever.

"To think, you sent me away, when you needed me that much," she said tenderly, stroking the side of his face, caressing him with the warmth of her love. 

"You, safe, was all that mattered," he said.

"That's how I feel too," she answered, and a wave of compassion and protectiveness flowed into him, tinged with the golden power she'd once possessed, and could again, he realized.

He looked a little deeper into her, through their new bond.  The golden fire had run throughout all her cells, just as it had with him and Jack.  She was changed, new.  She hadn't been thrown outside Time like Jack had, and she wasn't artificially enhanced like a Time Lord, but Time loved her now. There wasn't a trace of disease or decay anywhere. 

"Rose —" he said in wonder.

"I know," she said, her toothy smile wide.  "Isn't it brilliant?  I'll never leave you, Doctor.  Now you know I mean it."  
   
His mind reeled as he tried to take it all in, but before he could get his bearings, she was kissing him again, so he gave up and stopped resisting the unstoppable force that was Rose Marion Tyler, his bonded mate.

Jack caught them in the galley the next morning, grinning at each other over toast and tea, and he broke out into mad applause, hooting and cheering at them.  The Doctor stood and took a bow, the tips of his ears violent red, as Rose blushed and laughed and the Tardis hummed serenely through the Vortex: a job well done, she thought.  

 

related stories: [Eighth Doctor drabble prologue](http://day-by-drabble.livejournal.com/134198.html)    
[The Doctor and the Priestess of Pythia](http://fannishliss.livejournal.com/92082.html)    
you can read my other Who fic on my LJ under the tag of Who; also tagged by Nine, Ten, etc.


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